PRI 2013: Up Close With The 2015 Mustang and Ford Racing

The biggest automotive story this year has been the 2015 Ford Mustang. The blue oval kept this car as close of a secret as any manufacturer could right up until the week of the official reveal. This will be the first officially global Mustang and it must take on some of the best cars int he world.

With Mustang being such an important brand on it’s own to Ford the company had to make the 2015 a part of their Ford Racing PRI experience this year. Center stage in the booth, revealed by none other than Richard Petty on Thursday sat a red Mustang. We know the model on-stage was not a GT since it wore no 5.0 badges and no GT on the rear deck. We don’t know if it was the 2.3 Turbo model, or the V6. Regardless, it did wear some big brakes and large wheels and tires.

We did our best to pry any secrets we could out of Ford’s Jessie Kershaw, but he remained tight lipped, except to say that there are many packages coming for this car. With that mention, we suspect the 2015 will enter the marketplace with either a slew of options for owners to have installed at the factory or by their dealer, or an updated Ford Racing Performance Parts catalog that will include a variety of parts for owners to either have their dealer install, or for them to install at home on their own. There’s the possibility that both of these could occur as well.

We didn’t get to ask yet, but we’re almost certain Ford will be sending out some early production models, or even pre-production specifications to the aftermarket similar to what they did just before the S197 Mustang went on sale nearly 10 year sago. This will allow the aftermarket to have parts developed and ready for the new S550 platform almost as soon as it starts rolling out of dealer showrooms.

At nearly every booth we stopped in during the PRI show, someone was talking about the new Mustang, and we even caught a few from the industry pouring over the car on stage, and snapping pictures with their phones from underneath. This is the buzz Ford is looking for around the car, now let’s hope they release it with performance numbers to meet the hype.